Iraq’s Nineveh Province Considers Autonomy

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraq’s Sunni Nineveh province says it is considering autonomy from the Shiite-led government in Baghdad and trying to work out territorial divisions with the autonomous Kurdistan Region.

As violence in Iraq continues to worsen, and the autonomous Kurdistan Region remains Iraq’s only stable and economically prosperous portion, other regions in the country have been considering different models of self-administration.

"The provincial administration has started negotiation with the Kurdistan Region for implementing the project of turning Nineveh into an autonomous region," said Nineveh governor Athil Nujaif.

“It’s aimed at improving the situation of Nineveh administratively and offering services, not for sectarian separation," he added.

"It’s necessary to inform the Shiite parties, the neighboring countries and the world powers that we don't want a Sunni region; what we want is to better the condition of Nineveh administratively," he said.

Last year, Baghdad poured cold water on declarations of autonomy by the Sunni provinces of Saladin and Anbar and multi-ethnic Diyala. The provinces declared they wanted autonomy in protest to the lack of basic services, worsening security and mass arrests of Sunnis in their provinces.

The idea of autonomy has appeared to have gained greater popularity, especially among Sunni regions, as tensions have violently risen between the Shiite government in Baghdad and Iraq’s large Sunni minority.

Even the majority Shiite southern province of Basra had threatened to break away from Baghdad, complaining that the slow bureaucracy of the central government had slowed down development of the oil-rich province.

Last month, Iraq's Council of Ministers decided on making two more provinces out of Nineveh, triggering a threat by the governor and provincial council to turn the province into an autonomous region.

In order to convert into an autonomous region Nineveh, about 45 percent of whose population is Kurdish, must sort disputed territories that are also claimed by the Kurdistan Region.

Strained relations between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the local administration in Nineveh have improved under the shifting balance of power in Iraq and Baghdad’s policies, which have pushed the Kurds and Sunnis in Nineveh closer together.

US major ExxonMobil has three concessions in Kurdistan, where one of them is located in the disputed areas between the KRG and Nineveh province.

Many Sunnis leaders have advocated a Sunni region similar to that in Kurdistan as a model to protect them and provide security and services for their populations.

Meanwhile, Dildar Zebari, a controversial Kurdish politician who heads the Rebuilding and Justice group in Nineveh, said it is wrong to discuss the province’s future with the KRG.

“Negotiating with the KRG about the Nineveh region will weaken the province and it will all end in favor of the Kurds because they have more representatives in Baghdad than the people of Nineveh,” Zebari told Sumaria News. “So, we reject any step that the Kurds may take at the expense of Nineveh.”